A Voice in the Wilderness | Luke 3:1-6 | The Joy of Repentance

When we speak to our neighbors, when we speak to our loved ones who don't know Christ, when we ask them to change direction, when we ask them to turn their whole life towards Christ, there's confrontation in that. We cannot control how they're going to hear that call, and I assure you many, if not all of them, are gonna hear that, and they will instinctively feel a sense of condemnation because the holy spirit is convicting them when you make that statement. But we don't need to say it with anger and condemnation. We know the invitation for what it is. It's an invitation to come back home to the Lord. It's a wonderful comforting opportunity. [00:30:28] (50 seconds)  #ComeHomeToChrist

Well, what you need to see here is that for just a moment, Naaman is surrendering his intelligence and his wisdom and all that he has and all that he is, and he's believing in the word of God. He goes and he dips in the river, and lo and behold, he's healed. Friends, I'm calling upon you to turn. I'm calling upon you to humble yourself or to put it in words that you might be easier it might be easier for you to understand, lower the defenses. Bring down the walls. Bring down the obstacles, and let Christ come to you. [00:44:12] (47 seconds)  #LowerYourWalls

Some of us have been living our whole lives apart from you. We feel, Lord, that we've gotten along well enough without you. I pray that your spirit would convict us this morning that all of our ideas of a good life are foolishness, and that all our concepts of happiness and joy apart from you are just ignorance. I pray, Lord, that if there are those who are here this morning, that you would soften their hearts. And even though they hear the word repent and think of condemnation, I pray, Lord, that they would hear an invitation to come home, and they would be comforted by that offer. [00:45:30] (41 seconds)  #SoftenedHearts

You hear that message. However tender, however gentle it might be spoken, there's no way to hear that message as a hardened sinner and to not feel a sense of judgment and a sense of condemnation. There absolutely is confrontation in the word. There absolutely is a sense of conviction where you must change direction. But as far as God is concerned, this is an open hearted invitation. It is spoken in warmth, with love. It's spoken with with tenderness. It is a word of comfort. [00:29:45] (43 seconds)  #TenderRepentance

It is essentially a change within the mind that results in a turning of the direction of your life. And I would say also and most critically it is a turning of the affections of your heart. You'll notice it says to turn the hearts of the fathers back to the children. Every part of the human person is being called to turn. It isn't simply how we live, it is that. It isn't simply how we think, it is that. It isn't simply how we feel, it is all of that. All of who we are, the whole man down to the very core of our being is being called to turn or to repent. [00:19:15] (48 seconds)  #WholeHeartTurn

John goes into the wilderness. And if you've ever been in this part of Israel, you understand that that area outside of Jerusalem in the region surrounding the Jordan, it is a craggy, rocky, difficult terrain. It's a hard place to get to, and there's reason a why he's preaching that. He intends for the backdrop of his sermon to be a condemnation of sorts on the people who most need to hear that sermon. You think I'm in the wilderness, John is saying, well, you should see the wilderness that is in the city where I'm not. You think this is rough terrain? Well, you should see the rough terrain of the hearts of the individuals who stand forth and claim to represent God. [00:21:09] (47 seconds)  #WildernessWitness

There was a man in the Old Testament named Naaman. He's a man of great wealth, great status. He was a general, conquered nations, had a tremendous army. He had a resume, a mile long of amazing accomplishments. Here's a man who is wealthy, who is accomplished, who is respected, who is feared. This is a man who's at the top. And one day, just like that, he comes down with leprosy. And he realizes all of his life's work, all of his accomplishments, all of the things he was previously proud of, it's all going to come to an end. He's gonna die just like every man dies. [00:41:36] (42 seconds)  #WealthCannotSave

Proverbs chapter four, the way of a sinner is hard. You sit here and you say, I don't want Christ to come into my life. I'm not ready to be vulnerable. I'm not ready to expose what I am to the Lord. I understand the fear. I understand the stubbornness, but what I am praying that the Holy Spirit will reveal to you this morning is that by resisting Christ, by refusing to hear this call to repent, you will have nothing but a life of hardship and destruction waiting in front of you. [00:38:21] (41 seconds)  #HardWayOfSin

You hear preachers, Baptist ministers, they come, they say you need to follow the book, you need to obey the bible, you need to do what the Lord tells you to do. And for those on the outside looking in, we hear that and time and again we think, man, that sounds so rigid. That sounds so legalistic. That sounds like so many obligations. I don't want any of that. That's the stubbornness and the hardness of your heart talking, and I'm here to call upon you to turn. [00:40:16] (24 seconds)  #BeyondLegalism

And the servant girl comes to him and she says, if he had asked you to go on some noble quest at the ends of the earth to achieve some amazing accomplishment, to go fetch the holy grail or whatever whatever quest you might go on, if he asked you to do something difficult, you would have done that. Right? Sure. That would make sense. Well, all he's asking you to do is go dip in the river. And Naaman in that moment realizes, what could it hurt? [00:43:39] (33 seconds)  #ObedienceOverPride

The word of the lord comes to the prophet Isaiah, and this is the passage speaking about John the Baptist. And he says, comfort. Comfort. And in case you're wondering how that should be read or understood, verse two makes it clear. Speak tenderly. The way that we speak, the way that we address these lost people who drifted far from god, we should speak in a way that is gentle and tender and caring and kind. It's all right there in the text. [00:27:38] (33 seconds)  #SpeakTenderly

Because what the Psalms say and what many in this church can bear witness to is this, when we did turn, when Christ came to us and we received Jesus, all those commandments, all those teachings that seemed onerous and burdensome, we found that they were a light and a delight. They were light on our shoulders and they delighted our heart and we rejoiced. [00:40:40] (26 seconds)  #JoyInObedience

The Greek word metanoeo, literally, if you break that word down into its consequent parts, it's the various parts of the word, it means literally a change of the mind. A changing of the mind. That is to say, upon reflection, upon having certain truths presented to you, you come to a point where your evaluation of the situation, your thoughts, the the perspective that you have, and even even the emotions that you might feel about a certain thing all begin to change as a result of what's being presented to you. [00:17:09] (44 seconds)  #ChangeOfMind

And at the appointed hour, those doors swing open and in walks a dirty sort of grungy guy, I imagine with a long beard, and he's not wearing any kind of a fancy coat or the livery of nobility. He's dressed in camel hair. And when you are expecting him to announce the arrival of the king, he doesn't announce the arrival of the king so much as he says, looking right at you, repent. [00:08:42] (32 seconds)  #UnexpectedMessenger

But what if it's not that way at all? What if everything we think we know about this word repentance is backwards? What if the word repent is actually one of the most loving, most hopeful, most compassionate, and most tender invitations we could ever be offered. [00:10:45] (27 seconds)  #RepentanceIsLove

Now I'm telling you that the word is a word of comfort and that the word repent is a word of tenderness, but the word repent still means turn. It still means you're going a certain way and you need to stop in the direction you're going, and you need to turn and go the other direction from everything you're thinking to everything you're feeling to everything you're doing. [00:29:14] (30 seconds)  #RepentMeansTurn

You mean to tell me I have to get dunked in the river seven times? Yeah. Seven times. This is a paraphrase, but essentially what Naaman says is that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. He does not soften his heart. He does not bow before the wisdom of the prophet, convinced of his own intelligence, convinced of his own righteousness, sure of his own judgment. He says, that's ridiculous. Forget this. I'm out of here. [00:43:06] (33 seconds)  #TooProudToObey

The proverbs say that the way of a sinner is shrouded in darkness. He does not know the way forward, and he trips and he falls over every obstacle. Because you do not have the the light of Christ guiding you, you will run into things you could never see, and because you're trying to control life in your own wisdom and according to your own judgment, you will constantly miscalculate. [00:39:02] (26 seconds)  #WayOfDarkness